Word on the Street: Jerrymandering

Do the French love Portland more than we do?

jerrymandering (n)

The delicate art of convincing Europeans to celebrate American culture in a far grander manner than we do, a practice that reached its zenith (or nadir?) with Jerry Lewis.

See: This month’s “Keep Portland Weird” (oui!) at Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou, a two-day minifestival of Portland music and culture featuring rock band Menomena, singer-songwriter Holcombe Waller, filmmaker Vanessa Renwick, and others. In a sentence: “I’m glad that the Thermals get to play the Pompidou, but do the French realize we’re totally jerrymandering them?” Related: Dead Moon, Ben Franklin